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Aviation History
2004
2004-07 - 0005.PDF
ULL LIST OF READER SER ADVERTISER CONTACTS - P4 WWW.FLIGHTINTERNATIONAL.COM Webmaster Sheena Buchanan +44 (20) 8652 4432 mbmaster@fliqhtMernaticmal.com EDITORIAL +44 (20) 8652 3842 Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS, UK Fax +44 (20) 8652 3840 email flight.intemational@rbi.co.uk Editor Murdo Morrison •44 (20) 8652 4395 mordo.momson@rbi.co.uk Editorial Assistant Andrew Costerton •44 (20) 8652 3835 andren.costerton@rbi.co.uk News Editor Andrew Doyle +44 (20) 8652 3096 andrew.doyle@rbi.co.uk Commercial Aviation Editor Max Kingsley-Jones •44 (20) 8652 3825 max.kingsley.jones@rbi.co.uk Defence Editor Craig Hoyle +44 (20) 8652 3834 craig.hoyle@rbi.co.uk Operations/Safety Editor David Learmount +44 (20) 8652 3845 david.learmount@rbi.co.uk Business Editor Alexander Campbell +44 (20) 8652 3990 alexander.campbell@rbi.co.uk Business & General Aviation Editor Kate Sarsfield +44 (20) 8652 3885 kate.sarsfield@rbi.co.uk Senior Reporter Justin Wastnage +44 (20) 8652 3Si3justin.wastnage@rbi.co.uk Spaceflight Correspondent Tim Furniss +44 (1237) 471960 tim@spaceport.coMk Senior Technical Artist Giuseppe Picarella +44 (20) 8652 S054joe.picarella@rbi.co.uk Editorial Artist Tim Brown +44 (20) 8652 8043 tim.brown@rbi.co.uk EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST European Editor Christina Mackenzie +33 (1) 64 23 68 89 christina.mackenzie@rbi.co.uk Israel Correspondent Arie Egozi +972 (3) 9413132 Middle East Correspondent Gerald Butt AMERICAS Washington DC Office Fax +1 (703) 836 8344 Americas Editor Graham Warwick +1 (703) 836 3448 graham.warwick@rbi.co.uk East Coast Editor Stephen Trimble •1 (703) 8363084 stephen.trimble@rbi.co.uk West Coast Editor Guy Norns +1 (949) 252 8971 Fax+1 (949) 252 8972 guy.norris@rbi.co.uk Brazil Correspondent Jackson Flores Jr +55 212439-6062 Fax +55 212349-6090 fubar@uol.com.br Canada Correspondent Brian Dunn ASIA/PACIFIC Singapore Office Fax +65 6789 7575 Regional Managing Editor Nicholas lonides +65 6780 4311 nichoias.ionides@rbi.co.uk Deputy Asia Editor Brendan Sobie +65 6780 4309 brendan.sobie@rbi.co.uk Regional Reporter Leithen Francis +65 6780 4314 leithen.francis@rbi.co.uk Australia Civil Aviation Correspondent Emma Kelly +61 (8) 9454 4987 emmajkelly@bigpond.com Associate Editor (Defence) Peter La Franchi +61419 246620 Fax+61 (2) 62312795 nulka@ozemail.com.au EDITORIAL PRODUCTION Group Production Editor Graeme Osborn +44 (20) 8652 3828 Group Art Editor James Mason +44 (20) 8652 4994 Chief Sub-Editor Chris Thornton +44 (20) 8652 4997 Deputy Production Editor Jackie Thompson +44 (20) 8652 3850 Sub Editor Megan Turner +44 (20) 8652 3848 Photographer Mark Wagner +44 (20) 8944 5225 SUBSCRIPTIONS +44 (1444) 445454 rbi.subscriptions@rbi.co.uk THE FLIGHT COLLECTION kirn.hearn@rbi.co.uk © and Database Rights 2004 Reed Business Information Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing ol the publishers A-F I Air Transport intelligence (ATI), Flight International's s\stet L\ J J online service at www.rati.com, contains the full text of flight International'and Airline Business since 1996. Full text of the magazines can also be found online with Lexis-Nexis, Dialogue, FT Profile, IAC and Reuters. Editor Kieran Daly +44 (20) 8652 3837 Reed Business Information COMMENT Comanche down The USA has decided that Boeing/Sikorsky's RAH-66 should be sacrificed to cure the rest of army aviation's woes. And it is right The sudden death of the RAH-66 Comanche last week came after the US Army made a sensible determination. The stealthy heli copter's long-promised potential fell short of a critical need to "fix" the rest of army aviation, which has been approaching crisis point. Comanche's Cold War cousins - the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F/A-22 Raptor, Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey and other weapons that supporters now confidently recast as effective in modern conflict - deserve a similar analysis. The Boeing/Sikorsky rotorcraft was partly the victim of a simple trade-off. For $14.6 bil lion, the army could buy the first 121 Comanches (assuming that development and production continued on schedule). Or, if the army is to be believed, it could solve virtually all of its aviation problems, correcting years of budget shortfalls by transferring the funds to buy active self-protection systems, Boeing AH- 64D Apache upgrades, more Boeing CH-47 Stealth is unable to hide a helicopter flying over urban rooftops in daylight Chinooks and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks and three new aircraft fleets designed to address emerging needs. This trade-off is possible thanks to a policy within the Department of Defense (DoD) that now allows the services to scrap unneeded programmes with the assurance that the sav ings will be returned to their modernisation accounts, rather than dispersed to cover other needs elsewhere in the military. An example is the US Air Force's 2001 decision to retire one- third of its Rockwell B-1B fleet, redirecting the operating funds saved to finance long-needed upgrades for the bomber. Ironically for a stealthy helicopter, it was sur vivability concerns that ultimately scuppered the Comanche. In part to justify its cancellation, the army finally revealed last week the full ros ter of helicopters lost to hostile fire in Iraq. Nine aircraft have been shot down by a mix of sur face-to-air-missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire, killing 32 US troops. Active self-protection has since become army aviation's top priority, leading to acceler ated development and deployment at the advanced threat infrared countermeasures system. The $38 billion Comanche pro gramme did not include an active jammer, a deficiency army leaders claimed would take billions of dollars more to correct. In the end, the helicopter downings in Iraq confirmed that one unique Comanche attribute - low observability - had lost its cachet. Stealth, alas, is unable to hide a helicopter fly ing over urban rooftops in broad daylight. While Boeing/Sikorsky's design was struggling to meet some radar cross-section goals, even the baseline stealth requirements would offer no protection on a modern battlefield pocked with shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missile launchers. The army's decision is proper, if about 10 years and nearly $7 billion of development funds too late. It is in keeping with the Pentagon's stated goal of foregoing outmoded weapons programmes to focus on transforma tional capabilities. It is also fitting that the US Air Force's prized Raptor is now under a simi lar microscope. In an unrelated move one week before the Comanche was scrapped, the White House budget office directed the DoD to re-evaluate both the RAH-66 and F/A-22. The study is to evaluate whether or not these air craft will "change the way the army and air force organise and operate, or whether these programmes are merely another step in the evolution of rotary-wing and manned fighter aircraft technology," says the White House. In addition, the study will address whether or not new transformational programmes are being pursued or are receiving less funding because of the RAH-66 and Raptor. But it is not apparent that the F/A-22 is at risk, or is deserving, of cancellation. Indeed, there are enough notable differences between the two programmes to almost rule out the possibility of an untimely end to the Raptor. For example, the Block 3 Apache is the functional equivalent of Block 1 Comanche with the now-redundant exception of stealth. By contrast, the F/A-22's promised perfor mance has no near-peer. While Comanche's relevance was allowed to drift, air force lead ers were willing to swallow major cost increases to adapt an air-superiority platform to post-Cold War roles, such as ground attack. But what is needed is an effort to recalibrate, if necessary, the original and added-on capabil ities of the F/A-22. The DoD study should assess whether the USAF's two-year-old effort to reshape the Raptor's mission has been matched by the technical resources to make it effective. Talk of an FB-22 fighter-bomber is enough to make an observer wonder if that is closer to the weapon the air force truly needs. SEE HEADLINES P4 AND SHOW REPORT P21 www.flightinternational.com FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 2-8 MARCH 2004 3
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